Kilbey began his professional music career at age 17 when he joined a “cabaret band”. He then joined Precious Little, a rock band featuring future Church bandmate Peter Koppes on drums. Kilbey followed up with another band, Baby Grande, around 1978 while he lived in Canberra. Soon after, he formed The Church along with Koppes, Nick Ward, and Marty Willson-Piper.After some success in their native Australia in the early 1980s, Kilbey and The Church went on to international fame when “Under the Milky Way” (from their 1988 album Starfish) became a hit.

Kilbey has released six solo music albums and collaboratively written and/or produced recordings with the late Grant McLennan (of The Go-Betweens), Stephen Cummings, and Kev Carmody. Earthed, a book of fiction, was published in 1986, in conjunction with an album of the same name of instrumental electronic music. His book of poetry, Nineveh/The Ephemeron, was released in 1998 and was later republished.

Kilbey lives in Bondi, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, with his wife and three of his five children.His brothers, Russell Kilbey and John Kilbey, have also led successful Australian bands.

A biography of Steve Kilbey titled No Certainty Attached was released in June 2009 by Verse Chorus Press. Also in June 2009, an album with Martin Kennedy (from All India Radio) called Unseen Music, Unheard Words was released. Kilbey’s first solo record in eight years, entitled Painkiller was released in North America on Second Motion Records in early 2009.